Themes: Bohemian Life, Class Differences, Faltering Friendships
Main Cast: Aidan Gillen, Kate Ashfield
Release Year: 2000
Country: UK
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
Music video director Jamie Thraves made his feature debut with this cinema verite look at a group of bohemian Londoners straddling the line between apathy and ambition. Aidan Gillen (of the popular British TV series Queer As Folk) plays Frank, a prop artist who spends his free time chain-smoking, drinking, pontificating, and chain-smoking some more. He's at a crossroads, however: Unable to tolerate his loud, drug-dealing neighbors, he considers buying a flat of his own. At the realtors, he meets the fetching Ruby (Kate Ashfield), who shows him a variety of dismal real estate opportunities, barely veiling her contempt for the offerings. Charmed, Frank begins to go out with Kate, and as their relationship heats up, Frank notices changes in his group of laterally mobile friends. Mike (Dean Lennox Kelly) begins to take on more responsibility, both at the prop shop and in his personal life, as he proposes marriage to his longtime girlfriend -- putting him at odds with the more lackadaisical John (Tobias Menzies), a chronically tardy co-worker who's beginning to reconsider his career track. Frank finds himself mediating between the two, and unable to make any definitive choices in his own life. The Low Down made its North American Premiere at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Review
Another small gem unearthed by the indispensable Shooting Gallery Film Series, this extremely well-acted look at a loose-knit group of English fringe dwellers is exactly the type of material one can see being cheapened by sub-moronic Hollywood filmmakers, but here it looks and sounds just right. The movie is hardly a groundbreaking addition to the legion of slacker flicks that surfaced in the 1990s and on into the next century, but writer/director Jamie Thraves employs a keen sense of control on the picture, wisely letting his gifted cast excavate the subtleties of the (slim) narrative. Best of all is the enormously talented Aidan Gillen, who turns the cliché of the heterosexual male dreamer into a full-bodied character with all of the complications of a real-life figure. The picture also benefits from Thraves' admirable use of 16 mm instead of reveling in the shaky handheld, bleached-out look favored by his contemporaries. This choice immediately brands the director's debut as one that strives to stand apart from the pack, and it does so in more ways than one. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
